LaBelle forwards a link to Maureen Dowd at her best.
John Kerry's advisers were surprised and annoyed to hear that Mr. Gore hollered so much, he made Howard Dean look like George Pataki. They don't want voters to be reminded of the wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party.
They would like Mr. Gore, who brought bad karma to Mr. Dean with his primary endorsement, to zip it and go away. But more and more Democrats think it is Mr. Kerry who should zip it and go away.
They would like Mr. Gore, who brought bad karma to Mr. Dean with his primary endorsement, to zip it and go away. But more and more Democrats think it is Mr. Kerry who should zip it and go away.
I'll second that.
They wonder whether Mr. Kerry should just let the campaign be Bush vs. Bush. As the president's old running buddy, Lee Atwater, used to say, don't get in the way when your rival's busy shooting himself.
Ha! Excellent advice.
Couldn't the Democratic standard-bearer use a William McKinley front-porch strategy, talking only to those who bother to show up at his front porch? After all, Mr. Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, have five front porches, stretching from Sun Valley to Nantucket and Georgetown.
Mr. Kerry, once a critic of campaign financing abuses, had toyed with the idea of not accepting the nomination at his nominating convention so he could spend even more in contributions. While he announced yesterday that he had dropped that belittled idea, maybe he just didn't take the plan far enough.
Maybe he shouldn't go down from his town house on Beacon Hill to the Fleet Center at all. The conventioneers may be more galvanized if they focus on vividly vivisecting Mr. Bush, instead of being dulled to distraction by Mr. Kerry, waving stiffly in his Oxford-cloth shirt, trying to be all things to all people all the prime time.
Mr. Kerry, once a critic of campaign financing abuses, had toyed with the idea of not accepting the nomination at his nominating convention so he could spend even more in contributions. While he announced yesterday that he had dropped that belittled idea, maybe he just didn't take the plan far enough.
Maybe he shouldn't go down from his town house on Beacon Hill to the Fleet Center at all. The conventioneers may be more galvanized if they focus on vividly vivisecting Mr. Bush, instead of being dulled to distraction by Mr. Kerry, waving stiffly in his Oxford-cloth shirt, trying to be all things to all people all the prime time.
Oooooh. Touché.
The president did look a little rattled during his finger-in-the-dike speech at the Army War College on Monday night, as he promised to give the Iraqi people the gift of "a humane, well-supervised prison system." It was hard to tell if it was the subdued response of the military audience, the only group forbidden to criticize the commander in chief, or if it's beginning to sink in: this is one mess that no amount of power and privilege, or unending terror alerts, can get him out of. (Mr. Bush's speech about the Iraqi makeover, as he wore all that makeup, couldn't even pre-empt the more convincing makeovers on "The Swan" on Fox.)
Or maybe it was just the dread at knowing that the next morning he had to call Jacques Chirac and cry "oncle" on Iraq.
Or maybe it was just the dread at knowing that the next morning he had to call Jacques Chirac and cry "oncle" on Iraq.
But don't ever expect him to admit he was mistaken about anything. The king is never wrong. And he never, never, never has to say he's sorry.
I think the French are getting the last laugh, eh?
....hey, laugh on, Frenchies...you are certainly justified.
